Spring Decluttering Results

At the beginning of the month I challenged myself and fellow Tulhoma writers to get rid of 30 things in their homes in 30 days. While we have a few days left of April, it sounds like we’ve already done most of our overhaul.

You can read all about what our plans were in this post, but in summary it was our goal to get rid of or consume 30 things, and we broke down those household things into categories (like clothes, linens, makeup, etc.) to make it a little easier to tackle.

I went through another clothing purge. The focus of this purge was on items that were once nice, but were worn too much (sweaters with those tiny thread balls, stuff with stains that I haven’t been able to get rid of, tarnished jewelry) and clothes that just don’t fit my body type (i.e. mostly dresses that are too short). I got rid of probably 30 pieces of clothing and accessories alone, but also tried to stick to my goal of the other categories too.

Here’s what I got rid of:

• 4 dresses, 2 skirts, 3 pairs of winter socks (that I’ve barely worn), 4 pieces of cheap jewelry, 3 sweaters, 4 t-shirts/work out shirts, 2 pieces of outwear, 1 scarf, one pair of shoes, plus several of my husband’s clothes, all donated.
• 5 old lipsticks, 2 finger nail polish, 2 powder foundations
• 3 reusable bags, donated. I had too many reusable grocery bags and only really use 3 of them. I could probably stand to get rid of two more, but that’s for another time.
• 4 expired medicines. I’m not someone who is crazy strict on expiration dates, but these all expired in 2016 or earlier, oops.
• 2 books from grad school
• 1 old kitchen towel, 3 pens, but still hoarding the notebooks

Here’s are some things Alexys and Bethany got rid of:

• Alexys: Old makeup that has expired, unused and mismatched tupperware, dried up brown sugar and some expired baking ingredients.  
• Bethany: old sheets, clothing and shoes, kitchen utensils

Here’s what I consumed or am currently consuming to get rid of:

• A bag of pinto beans, half a container of lentils, a can of chickpeas, and I’m making my way through my tea collection (mostly herbal with no caffeine that I don’t normally drink)
• 2 almost empty moisturizers, an exfoliator, and a bottle of conditioner

Here’s what Bethany and Alexys consumed:

• Alexys: I used up some black pepper grinders (the ones you buy with the grinder already attached). I have a few of these, and while they are nice, I almost always use ground pepper for convenience. I actually ran out of ground pepper recently and decided not to use it again until I have finished up all of the pepper grinders. 
• Bethany: Over the years I have accumulated several small tubes of different facial moisturizers. I recently ran out of the moisturizer I normally use so instead of buying a new one right away I decided to wait until I have used up all of the samples I have. I also had some dry foods (rice, lentils, quinoa) and tea hiding in my pantry that I had purchased for some reason and never used.

Did you fix anything or make it functioning again?

• Alexys: I wouldn’t say that I “fixed” it, but I did clean out a few old pickle jars and an empty glass maple syrup jar. I’ve been able to repurpose them for food storage (I currently have some homemade granola in one!).  
• Bethany: My daughter had a lamp in her room she wanted to get rid of. The shade was pretty beat up so I plan to purchase a new shade and then use the lamp in another room in our house.
• Taryn: I have three pairs of jeans that I’ve had forever, but I still really like that have small holes either in the thigh or butt. I planned to sew them. I don’t sew and don’t have sewing equipment (even a needle and thread), and since I’m not venturing out to stores right now, I haven’t purchased. But I have the jeans out on display pushing me to buy a small sewing set.

Did you replace something?

• Alexys: I’ve had the same dinnerware for many, many years and I noticed a lot of my dinner plates were really scratched up and chipped, so I got some new ones. I will probably still use some of the plates I already have, but the ones that are noticeably scratched will be going into storage for now. 
• Bethany: I had a pair of black strappy sandals that were broken so I threw them away and I plan to replace them soon. I also had a baking dish that developed a large crack so I replaced it with a new dish.

What was something you got rid of/consumed that made you feel better after it was gone?

• Alexys: When going through all of my food cabinets these past few weeks there was so much clutter that I feel I haven’t been getting enough use out of most of it. Since cleaning and organizing (most of) my food cabinets, I feel much less wasteful now and I actually found some things I was planning on buying that I already had. 
• Bethany: Since we are trying to spend less money and limit how often we go to the grocery store I tried to use ingredients we already had on hand. This pushed me to get a little more creative with my cooking and I found some new recipes that I have really enjoyed. One of my favorites has been mujadara, a Middle Eastern rice dish. I had all of the main ingredients on hand (rice, lentils and onion) so I was able to use up what I already had in my pantry and I learned to make a new dish.
• Taryn: Taking the time to organize my cosmetics, medicine, and things of that sort and really thinking about the last time I used them felt really nice to do. I don’t own a ton of any of these products, which is why I always overlooked them while organizing. But something simple, like tossing out lipstick from 2010, really made me feel organized. Also, letting go of clothes that I once loved, but loved too hard, was a little difficult but I feel much better now that my closet is even more uncluttered.

Have you done any spring cleaning or organizing? Sometimes, even just starting with your hall closet or a night stand is enough to make you feel better about your home. I find that when I set small goals for myself, like organizing my makeup or gathering up all the chargers I have in my house to see if I really need all of them, is so much easier to get started on. Versus giving up a whole weekend and me half-assing the organization after a couple hours.